"The deuce he has!"

"See you, I do not like to have any one take my horses when I let them
loose on the mountains, neither do I choose to have any one take my
daughters when I allow them to go to a dance. I will not have it."

"No, of course not."

"I cannot go with them; I am old, I cannot be forever on the lookout."

"No, no! no, no!"

"Yes, you see, I will have order and propriety; there the block must
stand, and there the axe must lie, and there the knife, and there they
must sweep, and there throw rubbish out,--not outside the door, but
yonder in the corner, just there--yes; and nowhere else. So, when I
say to her: 'not this one but that one!' I expect it to be that one,
and not this one!"

"Certainly."

"But it is not so. For three years she has persisted in thwarting me,
and for three years we have not been happy together. This is bad; and
if he is at the bottom of it, I will tell him so that you may hear it,
you, his father, that it will not do him any good. He may as well give
it up."

"Yes, yes."

Ole looked a moment at Thore, then he said,--